Beer Review: Polish Tyskie Gronie Premium Lager

With untold numbers of Poles now living and working in Britain, it was inevitable that their foods and drinks would follow them. One such drink is Tyskie Gronie Premium Lager.

Available from nearly every corner shop, off-licence and supermarket here in the East End, Tyskie is widely available. And on the face of it, not bad value either at around £1.35-ish for a 500 millilitre bottle. Interesting that 500ml is the only size available when most other imported beers come in at around the 300ml mark. Presumably there is some logic behind only importing this larger size to the UK. One this is for sure, it does stand out on the shelf next to smaller bottles from the rest of the world.

The white background labels also help make it eye-catching. The front label is both Polish and English in language and gives us some useful information. With heritage going back to 1629, this must be one of the oldest beers/breweries that I have yet tried. It is also an award winning beer. And unlike someotherbeers, this time we can see what and when: some five beer competitions over the past few years in Europe. Impressive.

Sadly, the rear label is rather less coherent. With several dozen different languages, the rear label becomes in impenetrable block of text.

After sending out a search party, the ingredients of water, malt and hops eventually turned up. A volume of 5.6% also turned up which definitely places it at the premium end of the continental lager spectrum.

Poured into a glass, the 500 millilitres came in just short of a pint. A thick head accompanied the drink. Whether that was because of my pouring or what was supposed to happen, I’m not certain. If you think it looks right or wrong, leave a comment.

The colour looked fine. It was dark gold-ish in colour. Is that what lager is supposed to look like? I don’t drink enough of it to know. What I could tell that was different to some others were the number of gas bubbles rapidly making their way to the surface. Likely the cause of the head, this could also make it a gassy drink.

Tyskie manages to smell as if it is premium. The malt and hops are there giving it some class, but nowhere near as prominently as Leffe. Starting to drink it, Tyskie Gronie lager tasted exactly how I thought lager should taste. It has that bitter taste and slightly sour aftertaste. Albeit, the aftertaste isn’t as strong as some others. And that is a good thing.

As I glugged my way through the bottle’s contents, my opinion started to change. I began thinking “this is a good, solid, decent lager”. Toward the end of the bottle, I had more than become used to the taste and was quite enjoying it. Unusual for me considering my indifference to lagers. This must be what makes Tyskie Gronie ‘premium’ and multiple award winning: drinkability.

Once you adjust to the taste, you’ll find Tyskie Gronie to be a good quality lager. Good if you like lagers. Maybe worth a try if you want to see what the fuss is about.

Rating: 3.5

Have you tried Tyskie Gronie? What did you think? What do you want me to try next?
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This entry was posted on 21 February, 2008 at 8:56 pm and is filed under drink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Just had my first bottle of it (gift of a cool neighbor who works in the beer industry) and being a IPA fan, I too wasn’t sure if I would think much of this polish lager thing. But, it was good – and I also began to really enjoy it as the bottle came to it’s end. Thanks for posting about it

Bought a couple of bottles of this today in Doncaster. I was in an off-licence, which seemed to cater for immigrant workers and it was packed with bank holiday revellers, so in my immediacy to get in the queue, I just grabbed a couple of bottles of something that looked like lager.
I actually got home, and because the labels on the bottles I bought are written completely in Polish, I thought ‘oh god, I hope this isn’t cider!’ (which I detest).
Interesting (and encouraging) that the bottles have a picture of a car key with a red cross through it, and the words ‘Nigdy nie jezdze po alkoholu’. Clearly an anti-drink and drive message in any language. As lagers go, it’s lovely. Has a sharp taste that is exciting and hits the right spot, but doesn’t make your gob feels sh*tty three minutes later. Absolute zero aftertaste. Quite a crisp little lager actually, although not (as hywelsblog says) quite a threat for Leffe, which is lovely to the hilt. Although, saying that, Leffe, which I believe is Belgian, is a beer I only buy when I’m feeling particularly flush. It’s a pricey little bugger! I paid £1.29 for my 500ml bottle of Tyskie Gronie. The current influx of Polish workers is more than just a boost to the economy! Nice cheeky little strong lager that I will buy again. I’ll bugger off now and get back to supping it!

Just spent a week in Warsaw and came across both Tyskie and Zywiec in the many pubs we visited. Hywel’s description of Tyskie’s amazing ability to get better with each sip is right on. Don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t bad at all with the first, but all three of us sitting around the table had come to the same conclusion by the third or fourth draw. We never had any bottled beers to compare. While we all liked Zywiec, we kept going back to the places that had Tyskie on tap.

Also highly recommend Krupnik, a honey liqueur of which our Polish hosts were very proud.

I don’t consider myself to be a lager drinker, but thoroughly enjoy a bottle of Tyskie. Its shot up in price but as a treat I bought myself a bottle of it this evening, a quality lager. I usually will only touch real ale and Belgian beers, this is one of my favourite beverages.

Leo Says:
27 January, 2009 at 10:15 pm | Reply
Tyskie is a Polish Macro lager, brewed by Tyskie Brewery, which is owned by SABMiller. It has more than barely malt in it. I taste about 40% rice in the mash. It’s a typical bland macro brew.

Almost everything produced by SABMiller is swill for the masses

So true………..like so many of these Polish beers ……10 years ago taste was completely different ……Due to a recent real beer revival un-pasturised ones are now on the market and much better tasting with more hoppy flavours.

Poland makes very good beers but Tyskie is not one of them anymore…..
Zywiec just about survived as a good tasting . Carlsberg bought out / merged with some old small breweries and for some reason ruined the taste of the beer by changing the recipes or brewing methods……….

One more thing…….the Poles arent really a beer drinking nation…..if you want to try an excellent alcoholic Polish drink then try some of their world class vodkas….if you enjoy a good beer then try any of the Czech ones…….I could go on all day about them……
Cheers.